World News

Two passenger trains collided head-on in Alexandria, Egypt, on Friday -- killing dozens of people and injuring scores more, government officials said.

Authorities said one of the trains had departed from Cairo and the other was from Port Said.

A spokesman for Egypt's health ministry, Khaled Megahed told al-Ahram the death toll was 36 with more than 100 people injured.

The nation's top prosecutor said it was not immediately clear how the accident happened or what caused the two trains to run on the same set of tracks. He ordered an immediate investigation.

The head of the Alexandria ambulance service said the death toll could rise, as many of the injuries were serious.

Train accidents in Egypt are rare but not unheard of. In 2012, a school bus collided with a train at a rail crossing. Fifty-one people were killed, many of them children. A train derailment in 2013 also killed 13 people.